Monday 24 July 2006

Plastic Monopoly

Call it a sign of the times.

Monopoly, that board-game favourite of budding capitalists with a rainy afternoon to waste putting little red hotels on Mayfair, has been pulled kicking and screaming out of the 1930s world of little, round tycoons in spats and silk hats and into the grey efficiency of the 21st century.

No, I don't mean that Monopoly will now be subject to Euro diktats, government oversight committees and WTO regulations. It's far worse. The piles of multi-coloured bank notes that, as they accumulated in little piles beside the playing board, allowed me to imagine that for once in my life I was solvent have been replaced with plastic debit cards and a little ATM machine.

I'm sure that it's much more efficient, but no matter how much money you have in the bank, fondling the debit card just isn't the same.

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